ABSTRACT
Place as a Primary Category of Biblical Faith One only needs to open the Bible at the beginning of Genesis and read a few pages to be left with the impression that place is important to the writer. The second creation account (Genesis 2) revolves around place: the Garden of Eden is not just the location where the drama happens to unfold, it is central to the narrative. This is not surprising in view of some of the insights at which we looked in the last chapter and summarized by Giddens' insight that 'the setting of interaction is not some neutral backdrop to events that are unfolding independently in the foreground. "Locales" enter into the very fabric of interaction in a multiplicity of ways.'1 It has been said that gardens mirror certain cosmic values and I would suggest that this image resonates with our deepest dis-placed selves within the human consciousness - 'the laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy', as T. S. Eliot would have it.2 This beginning sets the tone for what I shall argue is the importance of place throughout the scriptures, concluding with the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem at the consummation of all things at the end of time in the penultimate chapter of the Book of Revelation.
